Horwitz on ObamaCare

Steve Horwitz on ObamaCare:

I continue to be amazed at my friends on the left who think this bill is some sort of victory for the little guy. This will be a feast of lobbying and rent-seeking as it will be tinkered with for years if it passes. Who wins at that game? Not you and me, but Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and Big Corporations in general, who can absorb the costs and engage in the lobbying. It will kill small businesses and it will impoverish and worsen the medical care of the middle class, as well as the poor.

For all the talk on the left of being opposed to corporate power, they just don't seem to get that expanding the state's role is exactly what gives corporations REAL power through lobbying, rent-seeking and the all the rest.

I'll disagree with Steve on one thing; the left definitely gets it. From the minimum wage to agricultural subsidies to mandated benefits to this garbage, the left's economic philosophy (and recently much of the right's) is combining the redistribution of wealth with corporate back scratching, resulting in a duplicitous system that hides behind a veil of populist rhetoric and propaganda, yet ultimately ends up only benefiting the rich and powerful.

Corporate-statism is the greatest threat to liberty, democracy and capitalism, and this bill is a massive step toward that end.